Good evening, if you would open
your Bibles to Matthew chapter 8. What I'd like to speak on tonight
is how to come to Christ. And this is something that I
want to know I have a feeling this is something that you want
to know as well. Now, how we come will be dependent upon who
it is we're coming to, and that's what we're going to see in this
passage here. This is a familiar passage that we're going to look
at, just these first four verses of Matthew 8 here, so let's read
those together first. And when he was come down from
the mountain, great multitudes followed him, and behold, there
came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou
canst make me clean. And Jesus put forth his hand
and touched him, saying, I will be thou clean. And immediately
his leprosy was cleansed. And Jesus said unto him, see
that thou tell no man, but go that way and show thyself unto
the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded for a testimony
unto them. How to come to Christ. My question
to you is, will you also come to the Lord for cleansing? Is
there anyone here tonight who is weary with their sin? Is there
anyone here tonight who's bearing a burden and it's a heavy load
that you can't bear? Well, you need to come to Christ. Do you have trial in your life?
Are you experiencing loss right now? Do you have trouble that
you don't know how to get out of and you need comfort and you
need assurance? Then you need to come to Christ.
Do you need healed? Just as this leper needed healed,
do you need healed? And I'm not talking about the
kind of healing that a man can offer. I'm talking about the
kind of healing that when God touches you, just like he did
this man and says, I will be thou clean. That's the kind of
healing that I need and that I'm interested in. Now you imagine
for a moment what it is like to be this man, this man here,
this leper that came to the Lord. Leprosy, by all rights, was a
death sentence in that day. This was the worst thing that
you could have happen to you. It's not just that you were sick.
You were diseased, and this was a disease in which there was
no cure. And the whole time we're going
to describe these things about this man, I want you to, in parallel,
think of how this represents sin in our lives, sin for man. This was a disease with no cure.
And over the course of this disease, you became physically disfigured.
After a while, what it would do is it started to cause your
tissues to rot. You would lose your fingers and
the extremities of your body, so your nose would rot off. You'd lose your fingers. You'd
lose your toes. You became something that people stared at when they
saw you out. If they passed by you, they'd
look at you. I know you've seen people like
that. You look at them, and when they look at you, you look away.
because you're ashamed for even looking at him. This man was
banished outside of the city. You see, as a leper, you weren't
allowed to be in the city anymore. You had to be put outside the
camp and live in the leper colonies. Well, you know what that meant.
If you had a family, you were now removed from your family.
You couldn't hug your wife at night, kiss your children. You
couldn't see them anymore. You had to be put out away from
them, separated. You couldn't have a job, nobody
would give you a job, and whatever you had to provide with your
family, they were affected by this too. How much shame you
must bear for that. Because anything you touched,
it became unclean. Now there wasn't anything wrong
with it until you touched it, but when you touched it, because
you touched it, it then became unclean. You had to put a rag
over your face everywhere you went so people would keep their
distance from you and cry unclean, Unclean, that means stay away,
keep your distance from me. What a heavy load to bear. This
is more than just being sick. This is something that where
you're separated and you've lost everything. But then to hear
these words from the Lord himself, the thing that you want more
than anything, I will be thou clean. Now there is not a more
visible manifestation of sin in men than the picture that
leprosy represents for us. Because with sin, there is no
cure. Sin, you're born with it, you
do it, it's all you can do, it's all you know. You can never get
rid of it. Sin will be with you as long
as you're on this earth. It never gets better, and it
only gets worse. With regard to sin, the old man,
our flesh, anything that I can do in and of myself, can only
ever sin. That's all he can do. He can
never rise above it, never give even a little above it. We just
don't see it for what it is when we think those things. I can't
come to God because I'm unclean. I'm polluted. I'm a sinner. I've
been cast out of his presence. You know, you cannot approach
God You, yourself, standing on your own, you can't come to God's
presence. Do you realize how bad that is?
He won't even hear your prayers in and of yourself. I don't know
anything more frightening to me than to know that God wouldn't
hear my prayers. God can only hear our prayers
in Christ. You can do nothing to please God. There's nothing
you can do to gain favor with Him whatsoever that you can do
that you've produced. Your works are imperfect. You
never kept the law even one time. You're polluted, you're vile,
and the only thing right for you is to be fit for the wrath
of God because of what you've done and because it's what you
are. There's nothing more that someone
who understands what they are as a sinner wants than to be
free from their sin. than to have their sins forgiven.
And to hear these words from the Lord say, thy sins, which
are many, are forgiven. There's nothing more that I wanna
hear, just the same as this leper, he wants nothing more to be cleansed
of his leprosy to hear, I will be thou clean. Now I need forgiveness
for my sins. And the only way I'm gonna get
it is if he heals me. Now this story here that we read
about is mentioned three times in the Gospels, so it's of some
particular importance and deserves our attention. It is given as
a pattern of faith but also for how we are to come to the Lord
when asking for something. And so what I want us to look
at tonight is how this man came to the Lord when he asked for
something. There's five things we're gonna look at. First, if
you look, and they're all in verse two, first is leper, second
is worshiped, third is Lord, fourth is if thou wilt, and the
fifth is canst make me clean. So the first one, leper. This
man had some understanding of his condition. He had lived this
way for a while. He knew that he couldn't just
approach the people, yet we find him approaching the Lord. This
should remind us of where we are when we approach him as well.
This is a picture of leprosy and how he couldn't approach
anyone Think and remind ourselves of who we are as sinners when
we approach God in his presence. I have no right in and of myself.
He was diseased, he was outcast, and he was not welcome. Have
you ever been made to feel that way in your life where somebody
just didn't want you around? You felt outcast? This is what
this man was. How much more are we outcast
from the presence of God who will not have sin around him?
His condition was hopeless. There was nothing that could
be done for this man to help him. This is where he was. He
had some acute understanding of what his condition was. Is
there a sinner in the house tonight? Is there someone who also needs
this kind of help? Have you ever prayed this? And
it's the simplest prayer that we can ask. Lord, help me. because this is what he was asking
the Lord, Lord, to help him. This is the same prayer that
the woman, when she had the child that was possessed with demons,
she came to the Lord. She didn't even know what to
ask after the point of asking for help and the Lord turning
her away, said, Lord, help me. I don't even know what to ask
for. I have no right to approach unto you or expect anything from
you. or even call upon your name because
of who I am. But I'm tired, and I'm bearing
a heavy load that I can't carry anymore, and I won't have help
if you don't help me. I have no way of helping myself.
Lord, help me." Now, it's only when we see who he is and we
know something of His power. Only then do we see our shame,
our guilt, our inability. Only when we see these things,
when we see we can do nothing, we can't help ourselves, and
we won't have help if we're not helped, that's the only time
that we'll come to Him. You will never come to Him for
help apart from seeing that you can't help yourself. There's
nothing that you can do, and you will have nothing if He doesn't
give it to you. What does this dire state of
being call for, being in this state? Only one thing. This is our second point. True
worship. I don't really think we even
understand fully what this means when it says He came and He worshipped
Him. This man worshiped the Lord.
And when I looked up worship to try to understand more about
that, because I think in some means, I was trying to explain
this to, I think, Clare earlier today, that we think it means
it's coming and having some, you know, positive interaction
with what we're, you know, hearing and we're hearing the message.
That's not worship. That's being able to hear the
gospel. Worship has something to do, it describes it with falling
prostrate on your face. being down low, where man is
brought low and Lord is seen very high." Man's brought low,
lying down on the ground, face to the floor. And this is, I
think, the best definition I found of it. It's a state of utter
submission and weakness. I'm falling down in submission
that I can do nothing. I won't be helped if you don't
help me. I am completely weak and at your
mercy. It's a plea to someone far greater
who has the power and ability to give you what you need. That's
the only one you're going to worship. If you have the ability
to manipulate or to do anything to steer things your way, you
don't worship that person. You're going to try to manipulate
it. You only worship a sovereign God when you know that you can
do nothing but be in His hands. This man worshiped the Lord. Question, is he worthy of worship? Now, most people will wait to
see how things work out for them before they answer that question.
So, if things are working out well for you, why not? I'm getting
what I want out of this. Sure, I'll worship. How do you
deal with worship when all you're given is the silence of the Lord? when He doesn't appear to answer
you at all? Is He still worthy of worship
then? How about when things don't go your way at all? It's going
bad. It's going completely the wrong way that you need and that
you wanted. Is He still worthy of worship
then? Well, what does the Scripture say? Because really, that's what
this is about. It doesn't matter what I think
or what you think. What does the Scripture say?
So let's turn, if we would, over to Philippians chapter 2 and
see what the Scriptures have to say about worship. We'll start reading in verse
9 here. also hath highly exalted him,
and given him a name which is above every name, that at the
name of Jesus every knee should bow." Every knee in heaven, every
knee in earth, every knee under the earth. The knees of all believers
who love his person, who believe his gospel. The knees also, how
about those that curse his name? How about those that reject his
gospel? How about those that look in
any fashion unto their works, even in part or a lot? How about
those who deny that he exists? And even to those who just don't
care because they're not interested. What does the scripture say?
It says they're gonna bow. And what else does it say if
we read on? Things in heaven, things in earth, things under
the earth, and that every tongue should confess. Those tongues
that praise his name and those tongues that revile his name
and esteem him as nothing. What does it say they're gonna
do? They're gonna confess. That means acknowledge openly
before everyone that Jesus is Lord. To the glory of God the
Father, let there be no confusion on this matter. He will be worshipped. You may bow willingly in this
life, but to the others, your rebellion will be crushed, and
you will submit to the conquering king when he comes. This is the
word from the scripture and shows us he will be worshipped. Which
brings me to my third point. there will be acknowledgement
of his lordship. He is Lord. It is he to whom
all things are under him. He is Lord who must reign till
he hath put all of his enemies under his feet. He is Lord who
crushed the serpent's head and thereby opened the ways of salvation
to all his people. He made a way for all his people.
He is Lord who died for your sins because He loved you. He
loved His people so much that He was willing to die for them.
He is Lord over all. He's the King of all the kings,
and of all authority and power, He's Lord over those lords as
well. Look ye to Him. He is worthy
of all worship. Do you remember in Mark chapter
5, when the Lord came over the sea, there was that great tempest
and the title said we're going to sink, and he stilled the wind
and the calm, and it said they were immediately at shore. There
was the man in the tombs who was possessed with all those
demons. He was under the control of those demons. They controlled
everything about him, no bad could tame him. No more than
the Lord's foot hit the shore, said he came running. came running
to the Lord, he was drawn to him, and what was the first thing
that he did? He said he worshipped him. He fell down on his knees and
worshipped him, worshipped the Lord. He came running, he was
bowing in submission to his power, to his authority, and to his
kingship. Those demons know who he was.
They may not love who he is, but they're going to bow. That's
what worship is. It's bowing to who he is. What
have we to do with thee? Jesus, thou son of the most high
God, I know thee who thou art. They knew exactly who he was,
and they came running and they worshiped. Bowing in submission. There will be acknowledgement
of his lordship, his will. It's sovereign. You know what
that means? That means he does what he wants,
when he wants, and with whom he wants. Because he's the king,
he's God, and he can do with his own what he pleases. He said,
I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. His will is sovereign,
and you're in His hands, and He will do with you whatsoever
He's pleased to do." Well, does that mean I just do nothing?
Because if I'm in His hands and you're saying it's out of my
control to do anything, He's going to do what He wants. Does
that mean I just do nothing? Let's turn over to Jonah chapter
3. I think that's answered for us. Now just in context, this is,
remember the Lord told Jonah, I want you to go to Nineveh,
preach against them, I'm going to destroy Nineveh. And of course
Jonah did not, got on the boat, you know, the fish took him up
and fish spit him out. Now Jonah's talking again to
the Lord after he's learned a few things. In chapter 3, we'll just
read the chapter. And the word of the Lord came
to Jonah the second time saying, arise and go to Nineveh, that
great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.
What I told you to do the first time. So Jonah rose and went
unto Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Nineveh was
an exceeding city about three days journey. So Jonah began
to enter into the city a day's journey and he cried and he said,
yet 40 days in Nineveh shall be overthrown. It's gonna go
down. So if we just operate by, well he's sovereign, it's gonna
happen, there's nothing we can do, then just stand there and
keep on going and know it's gonna come and shake your fist when
you don't like it. So is that what they did? Let's
read on. So the people of Nineveh believed
God. And they proclaimed a fast, and
put on sackcloth from the greatest of them even to the least. For
the word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his
throne. And he laid his road from him,
and he covered him with sackcloth and sat in ashes. And he caused
it to be proclaimed and published throughout Nineveh by the decree
of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd
nor flock, taste anything, but let them not feed nor drink water.
but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth and cry mightily
unto God. Yea, let every one of them turn
from his evil way and from the violence that's in their hands.
For who can tell if God will turn and repent and turn away
from his fierce anger that we perish not?" So what he's saying
here is, We don't know what the Lord will do. We assume a lot
of things about him. They said Nineveh's gonna be
destroyed. Did God tell them to proclaim
a fast? Did God tell them to sit in ashes
and to repent for what they've done? And look in verse 10, what
happened? It said, and God saw their works
and that they turned from their evil way. And God repented of
the evil that he said he would do unto them, and he did it not.
So what we see here is yes, God is sovereign, but he also is
a God who's willing to show mercy. And these people wanted mercy.
They didn't want to die, and they turned from their ways,
and so they cried for mercy, and God gave it to them. Now,
if I am somebody that just takes the attitude, well, he's sovereign,
nothing I can do, well, then maybe you will be mowed down.
But what we see here is these people cried for mercy. You're
called upon, you cry for mercy. And we can look at the examples
of Scripture to say the Lord will be merciful. Go back to
our text, if you would, Matthew 8. Our fourth point, he says, Lord,
if you will, now I can't make you do it, so we're looking at
if you will. I don't deserve it. I can bring
nothing to you to influence you to do anything for me because
I have nothing to give to you, first of all, but if you will,
Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. Now this is faith. Faith is a confident expectation
that we're going to receive something that I've never seen and that
I've never held with my hands. But I'm confident I'm gonna get
it. And I believe it to be so. Now did this man ask what he
needed to know before the Lord was willing to do this unto him?
Did he ask the Lord that? He just said, Lord, if you will.
Did this man ask what sins that he needed to stop before the
Lord was willing to make him clean? Did this man ask what
righteous works that he could do that would cause the Lord
to do something for him? Did this man ask what he needed
to do to make this work for him? This seems to be the words of
most religion today. Lord, if I'll do these things,
then will you do for me? That's what it's saying. He didn't
ask for any of these things. He came with nothing. He came
in the condition that he was, a sick leper that couldn't be
around anybody, and he was just crying for pure mercy. And what
did he do? He worshiped before he was told
yes or before he was told no, because the Lord is worthy of
worship. Lord, if you will, you can make
me clean. Now, Lord, if you will, there
are three things about God's will that I just want to quickly
point out. First, God's will is sovereign.
Whatever God wills, that's what He does, and it's right because
He does it. He's the Lord. He has the right
to do so. So His will is sovereign first.
Second, His will is unchanging. I am the Lord, I change not,
therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed." This ought to
be the best news you ever heard if you're a son of Jacob. This
is how God elected His people. This means if He elected me,
if He showed favor to me before, that means He can never take
it away. Because if He could, I certainly
have given Him enough reason to do so. Election's good news. It's the only way that I can
be saved because if it has to come another way, if he has to
look at anything I've done, I'm done for him. So regard to God's
will, it's sovereign, it's unchanging, and the third one is it's always
accomplished. This really blows the universal
redemption out of the water to say that God being God, allowed
His Son to come and die for sin of His people, for everybody's
sin. The thing that made Him mad,
sins that He hates, all those are paid for, but if you don't
do something, it doesn't work for you. This is ridiculous.
There is no such thing as this. How can He be God and not accomplish
His will? Think about this. that's not
reflected in terms of Lot. He told Lot, get out of the city.
I'm going to destroy the city. Lot didn't get out of the city,
did he? He said he tarried. So he had to send an angel in
there to drag him and his family out by the hand because his will
was not for Lot to perish. So there's no action in man that
has to happen to accomplish God's will. And if need be, we've seen
he'll send an angel in to accomplish his will to drag you by your
hand because you're too stupid to get out of the city. His will
is always accomplished. Despite my intelligence, the
Lord can overrule me. I guess that's the thing to take
away, is that you don't have to have the fear that you didn't
know or didn't do it. He'll take care of that too. His will is always accomplished.
And so our last point, Lord, if you will, and my faith is
resting on this, You can make me clean. Lord, if you will,
you can fill in the blank. Whatever it is, is there anything
too hard for God? Is there anything the Lord can't
do? This is what our faith is based on. Lord, I need forgiveness
for my sins. I have to trust him to take care
of that. I can't look to something I do to make that work. I have
to trust him to give me a righteousness that he'll accept. I have to
trust him. Lord, I need faith. I don't have
it. I have to trust Him that He can give me a new spirit within
me to cause me to have eyes to see and ears to hear and a heart
that believes, because if I have to come up with it, I'm done
for. Lord, if You will, You can. You can make me clean. You can
make me what I'm not. I'm not holy. I'm not righteous,
but Lord, You can make me that way. Lord, I'm not accepted. I can't come into your presence.
I am ashamed of what I am and what I've done, and I cannot
come into your presence. But he can make you that way.
He can make you accepted. He can make you clean on the
outside, but also on the inside too, and that's what matters,
because the Lord looketh upon the heart. The clearest example
we can see of something being made what it's not is in John
chapter 2. Do you remember that? Let's turn
over there and just look at that quickly. This is the Lord's first
recorded public miracle. The third day of the marriage
in Cana of Galilee, the mother of Jesus was there and both Jesus
was called and his disciples to the marriage. And when they
wanted wine, the mother of Jesus said unto him, they have no wine. Now that didn't mean that there
was some wine in the bottom of the barrels and that they were
almost out. They have no wine meant they're out of wine. there
was none. So, you know the story. He tells
his disciples to fill the buckets with water and fill them in the
pitchers. And so, picking up in verse 9, when the ruler of
the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew
not whence it was, but the servants drew the water, the governor
of the feast called the bridegroom, and said unto him, Every man
at the beginning doth set forth good wine, and when men have
well drunk, then that which is worse, but thou hast kept the
good wine until now." So what we see here, this manifests him
making something what it's not. Water cannot be wine chemically. It is impossible. There is no
way that you can have something in the bottom of the jar, pour
water in it, and it turns into wine. It can't. The Lord made
water that could never exhibit the properties of wine to be
wine. I'm looking right now at some
people who have been made the righteousness of God in Him. He's made you that way. Now there's
nothing about you that's righteous. There's nothing about you at
all that God can accept, but He can make you that way. He
can make you righteous, He can make you holy, and He can make
you accepted before Him. He can make you clean. He can
make you free of sin. He can wash you in His blood
so that you stand righteous and holy before Him in love. This
is our hope. This is our confident expectation
that He can do this for us. This is what I've got everything
riding on. If this doesn't work out, I'm
done for because this is everything that I hope for is that I will
be made righteous and that he will forgive my sins, things
that I can't do. The Lord's words were, I will
be thou clean. Now, I want you to consider this.
When the Lord said, I will be thou clean to the leper, did
that leper become just slowly less and less diseased until
he became clean? Leprosy slowly went away. You
know, right now, you know, our pastors in the, in the, you know,
hospital, they're giving me antibiotics. These antibiotics are going to
work a little bit more each day, and each day, and you get less
and less bacteria until you don't have them. Is that what happened
here with the Lord? No. It says immediately leprosy
left him. If you go back to our text, I
will be thou clean, and immediately his leprosy was cleansed. So
the effects of the Lord's work here were immediate. Now this
is where many of our friends err greatly on this, so listen
closely to me. Immediately his leprosy was cleansed. When God does a work of grace
in a person, he gives them a new man, and that new man has a new
spirit and a new nature. that was not there before. It
didn't gradually come. It was birth. He calls it the
being born again, a new birth. Something that wasn't there was
there, being made something that you're not. So when we're given
this new man, you're as clean as you're ever going to be. You're
as holy as you're ever gonna be. You're as righteous as you're
ever gonna be, and you're as accepted as you're ever gonna
be. From the first day you got it until your last. There's no
difference between the first and the last day. So what we've
been given, now there's flesh on top of here. This stuff gets
in the way. But the new man that you're given
does not change, just like the Lord who does not change. We're given his spirit, his nature,
and you'll walk in it. How do I know this? Because if
you look in verse 4, it says, the Lord told him to go and show
himself to the priest. Well, why would he need to do
that? He needs to go to the priest because this has all got to be
taken care of before the law. you could have your leprosy stopped
in your body, but still not be clean before the law. So the
work of Christ not only had to be work that God would accept,
but it also had to be satisfied before the law as well. So he
had to go to the priest to look at the law of the plague. This
is in Leviticus. and the Law of Cleansing. There
were two laws that had to happen. So the Law of the Plague showed
the priests how they could look at the progression of the disease,
whether it was there or not. You know, there's a whole chapter,
you know, if the skin's red or white. And so there was also
the Law of Cleansing. It's the process by which he
is made clean. So the Lord made him clean. The
leprosy, the disease, was gone. There was no disease. So what
this tells us The Lord made this man clean, free of the disease,
free to leprosy. What did he look like before
the Lord cleansed him? He looked like a man that had
been living with a disease that had badly scarred his body for
years. Nose gone, fingers gone, toes
were gone at this point. He looked like a leper. What
did he look like after the Lord cleansed him? He didn't look
any different. Now, he didn't have that disease
in his body anymore. He was made clean, but the effects
of that disease ravaged his body, and he was scarred, and by all
means and measures, when you saw him for the difference, he
looked like he had leprosy. But he was clean. The disease
wasn't there. What this tells us, we cannot look to the old
man for any evidence that we've been made clean. If the Lord
has made you clean, you're clean. You can't look to the old man
for evidences that you've been made clean. The work is done
on the inside. Now, on the outside, as we said,
he looked bad. He looked bad, and he had to
go through the process of being made clean with the priest before
the wall. The nose doesn't grow back. When
you're given the new man, your sin's still there. This is why
we have two natures. There's not one nature that is
influenced one way or the other. There are two natures. Sin is
still there when you're being given the new man. And so you're
gonna live with it all your days until you lay down your flesh.
That's the only time sin's gonna die when it's swallowed up in
death. That's the only time sin's gonna leave you. But if the Lord
would make you clean, You will be clean. Do not look to the
old man for any confidence, for any evidence that anything has
been done to you. It's not going to look any different,
only worse, really. The more you see him and the
more you grow in grace, the more you're going to see your flesh
for what it is. It deserves to die. It deserves to be put down. Look only to the words that he
spoke. He said, I will be thou clean,
and you are. So what this brings us to is
can you call on the Lord in the exact same manner that this man
did? Knowing what you are. You're
a sinner. You're coming into his presence
and you have nothing before God. No claims, no excuses, find no
fault. You know that if God punished
you, he would be just and right for doing so. and you have nothing
to claim on him. Secondly, you worship him for
the glory that's due unto his name. I've not heard yes, and
I've not heard no, that he'll do anything for me, but I bow
because of who he is. Believing that he is able to
give me all that I require, and if he doesn't give it to me,
I have no way of getting it, but I believe that if he'll give
it to me, then I'll have it. Lord, if you will. Lord, if you
will, you can make me clean. If you come by this way, Lord,
if you will, then his words unto you are, I will be thou clean.